


at least once

by v3ilfire



Series: i have sprayed you into my eyes [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 13:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v3ilfire/pseuds/v3ilfire
Summary: And fall in love. At least once.Saoirse remembered that. Vividly. She remembered crying into mom’s gown just a week before, she remembered the squeaky gurney that took her body away, she remembered trying to mentally replace the memory of a withered woman who couldn’t keep fruit gelatin down with the ones of a warm, bright soldier who raised her; the one whose crows feet only showed when she smiled, who always kind of smelled like steel. Dad had stayed behind for the last breath, a duty that neither she nor Aisleigh could handle on their best days, and then that was it. The last time they saw their mother was in a sad, pale hospital room where the ammonia smell burned the inside of her nose, and now she had to experience that same hell from a different point of view. She had to be there for the last breath, this time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hello my name is v3ilfire and i'm changing the pacing of this romance because i can. meet saoirse ryder, she's nervous.

_And fall in love. At least once._

Saoirse remembered that. Vividly. She remembered crying into mom’s gown just a week before, she remembered the squeaky gurney that took her body away, she remembered trying to mentally replace the memory of a withered woman who couldn’t keep fruit gelatin down with the ones of a warm, bright soldier who raised her; the one whose crows feet only showed when she smiled, who always kind of smelled like steel. Dad had stayed behind for the last breath, a duty that neither she nor Aisleigh could handle on their best days, and then that was it. The last time they saw their mother was in a sad, pale hospital room where the ammonia smell burned the inside of her nose, and now she had to experience that same hell from a different point of view. She had to be there for the last breath, this time.

 _And fall in love. At least once_ , Mom had said, having been married to a man so cold he was making the same child who he gave away to a job she never wanted in some fucked up matrimony relive the worst day of her life in the few spare moments that she wasn’t knee deep in some post-cryo nightmare.

As soon as Saoirse felt the tears coming, she dug her nails as deep into her palms as she could. There was no way she would give her father’s room the satisfaction of seeing her break. It felt like losing, somehow.

She reached the Tempest in record time, the ship vacant and silent save for the hum of the drive core beneath her feet. Without thinking about it, she booked it from the bridge in some vain hope that the only person she wanted to see was in the tech lab, but the doors opened to reveal yet another empty room. She never quite realized how much bigger it was without a bulky angara finding a record amount of busy work among all the junk.

“Jaal is currently aboard the Nexus, Pathfinder. Would you like me to contact him?”  
Saoirse opened her mouth to speak, but the affirmative response got stuck. Ever since he boarded the Tempest, their journey was nothing but bad news on top of misfortunes on top of bad luck. He didn’t need to come aboard just to comfort his leaky-eyed ‘romantic friend.’ She said no.

God, she wasn’t even crying. She couldn’t. There was just that tense hollow in her throat and a steady stream of tears she was ignoring, but Saoirse’s body wouldn’t give her the relief of sobbing. Actually, now that she thought about it, she didn’t really cry _that day_ , either.

Aisleigh did though. Saoirse wondered if he’d cry for dad. If she was a bad person for not wanting to.

She decided she needed a distraction; the last thing she needed was someone like Liam seeing her almost-cry, because then they’d _both_ be in shambles and it would be a generally mortifying affair for everyone involved. So, as long as Cora didn’t break away from her training early and make a surprise entrance, she would occupy the bio lab. Maybe she would _at least_ trick herself into keeping it together for the sake of not getting her salty tears onto the sansevieria she was trying to germinate. _Maybe_.

Saoirse walked through the doors just as the misting sprays started their cycle, giving her just enough time to survey the seventeen pots that the racks proudly housed, thriving under Cora’s supervision and her occasional interventions. Thriving in a brand-new galaxy with no one but an asari-trained biotic and an anxious rogue botanist to care for them.

How very lonely.

SAM’s voice snapped her out of whatever sad trance she’d sunken into. “Pathfinder, Lieutenant Harper made note of three plants in need of repotting, and two in need of clipping.”  
“Right. Thanks.”

Repotting came first, considering Saoirse didn’t really want to handle anything sharp while her hands shook with all the subtlety of an elcor secret agent. She had to put everything else out of her mind; all of her worries and her anxieties and the nasty little thoughts that told her how much her brother would hate her when he woke up - _if_ he woke up. All of that had to go away, because if Lexi suggested finding someone to talk to _one more time_ , Saoirse would be forced to lock herself into a vault and scream until her voicebox was too damaged to even make the suggestion. She supposed dripping empty tears on a leafy little dracaena would have to pass, for the moment.

It almost worked, too. She was almost calm, almost fit for public consumption when the doors behind her opened without warning and scared her bolt upright.

“My darling one!” Jaal bellowed from just behind her. “Your Nexus continues to fascinate me. Tell me, when will the Elcor arrive? As far as the Angara are concerned, they will be a relief to communicate with. Humans could learn something from their ways.” All Saoirse had to do was say something. Anything. Literally just a _hello_ to break the tension, to make it seem like she wasn’t silently weeping into the pile of dirt and roots she was holding. He was teasing her and all she needed to do was _speak_. “... Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she squeaked, but the tears welled up with a renewed strength and just started to _pour_ over her cheeks. Jaal approached her slowly, clearly hesitant to touch her, but he did anyway. He turned her to face him, dracaena still clutched in her shaking hands, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She could no longer avoid eye contact when he lifted her chin just _slightly_ , and with that she could no longer avoid the reality of not … being alone.   
“What happened?”  
“You don’t wanna know,” she laughed, though it sounded more like a shudder.   
“I would not ask if I didn’t.” He moved his hands to her shoulders, her arms; at a complete loss but doing everything he could to stay in contact and yet knowing better than to hug her with a plant between them. All because he knew her too well, and cared about her too much.

Shit.

Against her best intentions, Saoirse pried one hand off the dracaena and set it gently on the work table with the other, allowing Jaal to be completely predictable and pull her into a firm embrace. And she let him, because all of a sudden the scourge-cloud of uncertainties in her head parted and she heard her mother’s voice and she _knew_. She tucked her head underneath his chin and clung to him and just … hoped that he knew, too.   
“I… don’t really wanna talk about it right now.”   
“I understand.” He didn’t, but he was _trying_ , which was sweet of him on its own.  
“I love you. Is that okay?”

Faced with one of the strangest confessionals of his life, Jaal loosened his grip and eased away just enough to look at Saoirse’s face again. “Is it normal for humans to be _upset_ about being in love?”   
“I’m not upset.” Jaal gave her a _look_ and she realized that was a weird thing to say while just inches away from the face-shaped tear stain on his _rofjinn_. “About _that_. I’ll tell you later, I promise, I just need to process.”  
“You do not _have_ to, Saoirse. I love you, too. I only want you to be well. If there is anything I can do --”

Saoirse’s impulses were about three for five so far, so she took another chance on her gut and popped onto her toes to kiss him. She threw her arms around his shoulders as soon as his were around her waist, knowing full well that this was just one _sliver_ of light in the barrage of bad news she was constantly wading through, but somehow it was enough. Just not being alone … was enough.

Once was enough.


End file.
